Improving on Neptune
The control syringe system we implemented in TERRA was repurposed from the 2016 Boston University iGEM Hardware Team, Neptune. Neptune designed an end to end design suite for continuous flow microfluidics, which helped automate the microfluidic design process. The team coupled this design software with DIY syringe pumps hardware, which are responsible for inputting flow into the microfluidic chip, to increase the accessibility of microfluidics due to the high cost of retail syringe pumps.
Our team decided to repurpose Neptune’s syringe pump hardware to develop our control syringe system because they already went through the process of designing and validating a DIY platform for automating syringe movement. In addition, since the syringe pumps were used to gradually push a syringe to dispense at a constant rate, they were able to demonstrate a high degree of controllability with their hardware platform. This gave us the confidence to reuse their hardware platform for our control syringe system in TERRA.
However, because of the difference in application between Neptune and TERRA, we needed to update the software operating the syringes. TERRA’s control syringe system is responsible for actuating control valves on the TERRA Adapter as opposed to inputting constant flow. To accomplish this the control syringes need to be able to sustain on/off states based on the output selection system on the TERRA Adapter. In order to execute this we programmed the servo motors for the syringes to move and hold certain positions based on the experiment protocol given by the user. These positions would last for a certain duration, depending on how long an output is selected for.
Improving on MARS
Adding to the MARS Repository
